Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The above debate pits two colleagues from Loyola University (New Orleans) against one another in an academic disputation on the minimum wage law.

Dr. Walter Block (left) is an Economics professor, and Dr. Boyd Blundell (right) is a Theology professor. Dr. Block, a free-market economist of the Austrian School, believes the minimum wage should be abolished, whereas Dr. Blundell believes it should be raised, and is sharply critical of the Austrian School and its libertarian underpinnings.

Dr. Blundell sets the tone of the debate early on by calling Dr. Block a "fundamentalist." He posits that Block is opposed to any scientific inquiry or the use of statistics in Economics - an assertion which Block denies.

Part of the reason behind Block's critique of the minimum wage stems from his understanding of Economics. Block believes Economics is a branch of logic, and he believes that as it is a social science rooted in human action, that certain axiomatic principles don't need statistical verification. In other words, Block believes that some things are just plain true on their face and don't need to be proved. They are economic law, and are as much a given as gravity.

Block doesn't oppose minimum wage because he's mean, he hates the poor, he has some rich crony buddies he wants to help get richer, or any of the other common assumptions and assertions as to why people would oppose the raising of the minimum wage. Block's argument is that minimum wage legislation hurts the people it claims to help, by increasing unemployment among the poor. He believes this is a self-evident truth based on the demand curve.

In a nutshell, the demand curve says that as something becomes more expensive, demand drops. As something becomes cheaper, demand rises. In the case of wages, if employers are required to pay workers more than their productivity, they will lose money. And in order to stay in business, those workers who are paid more than their productivity warrants, will eventually be done away with - often through automation - and entry level jobs disappear. And this hurts the poor in the long run. Block cites examples of this phenomenon, such as the disappearance of elevator operators and service station attendants.

Blundell denies that this is the case when it comes to the price of labor, and he claims that there are studies which deny this relationship between minimum wage and unemployment. Blundell claims that demand curves hold true for the cost of material goods, but fail in the realm of labor costs. When Block points out the principle of the demand curve, and explains why studies in the real world are very hard to isolate direct correlation between shifts in unemployment and shifts in minimum wage, owing to the complexity and volatility of costs and prices (the real world is not a controlled laboratory after all), Blundell dismisses him as a "fundamentalist."

Here is an example of an axiomatic truth: If I hire a hundred people to work for me, and if I give every potential employee a choice between accepting the exact same job for $1 per hour or $100 per hour, it doesn't take a double-blind experiment or a longitudinal study to state the fact that the vast majority (if not all) of the people would choose the latter salary over the former. This is because, all things being equal, people act in their self-interest. The same is true with the demand curve. This is not rocket science. If Walmart has a surplus of eggs, they know what to do: lower the price. That will cause demand to increase and will relieve the glut. Walmart doesn't have to hire Ph.D.s in Economics to run their business. And if studies were to show that raising egg prices increases demand, or if most people would choose to work for one dollar instead of a hundred dollars, it would suggest a flaw in the study - because such a study would simply defy logic, common sense, and human nature.

The demand curve is axiomatic. It is a fact of human nature. But Blundell calls Block a "fundamentalist" for believing it.

I find Blundell's approach to this debate especially interesting given that Block is an Atheist and Blundell is a theologian. I'm going to go out on a limb and presume Blundell to be a Christian, likely a Roman Catholic. And if he isn't, he is certainly swimming in the waters of Roman Catholic Christianity as an instructor of religious studies at a Jesuit institution and himself bearing a Ph.D. from a Jesuit institution. At one point in the debate, Blundell mentions God to make his argument.

But Block is the "fundamentalist" for believing in the demand curve.

The two men have two differing philosophies of epistemology, or approaches to knowing. Block does not believe in the supernatural or in divine revelation. He believes in logic and reason. Blundell believes in logic and reason but adds faith. Blundell (assuming he is a Christian) believes in God and that God reveals some things to men through prophecy, scripture, and (assuming he is a Catholic) through the teaching magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church.

Christians believe in the epistemological value of faith. They believe in revelation. They believe in a God that cannot be proved philosophically or scientifically - and this faith shapes their worldview.

In mocking Block as a "fundamentalist", Blundell also took a jab at Christians who believe in the creation account of the Book of Genesis and likewise labeled them as "fundamentalists." Most Roman Catholics deny the historical veracity of Genesis 1-11, considering that portion of the Old Testament to be mythological. Most modern teachers of Roman Catholicism accept Darwinian evolution in conjunction with faith in God. But what kinds of things does Blundell actually believe from the Bible? He believes that in first century Roman Judea, a Jewish girl named Mary was visited by a creature that has never been captured or shown to exist: an archangel. This archangel (named Gabriel) appeared to Mary, and the Holy Spirit (the third person of the Triune God) came to her and she conceived a child without any genetic material from a male human. In other words, she was a virgin who became pregnant.

The son she bore (so would claim Blundell) grew up and was perfect. He could defy the laws of nature and physics by changing water into wine, spontaneously healing cripples and lepers, and on at least two cases, raised the dead. He was also to rise from the dead himself.

Now, I don't know if there are longitudinal studies or metadata or double-blind experiments regarding human parthenogenesis, transformation of chemical substances, unexplainable healings, or resurrections, but these do seem quite contradictory to science - at least as much as belief in a six day creation or Noah's Ark.

Blundell also believes that this man named Jesus is still bodily alive today, being nearly 2,000 years old, and that he mystically appears when a priest says words over bread and wine. Jesus is the second person (the Son of God) of the Holy Trinity. These dogmatic beliefs he is willing to accept, but scoffs at the demand curve and argues that it be subject to scientific studies.

For Walter Block is the "fundamentalist" for believing in the demand curve.

Now, I don't say these things to mock Blundell. In fact, I agree with him. I'm a Christian. I'm a Lutheran pastor. And I say Mass twice a week. I believe Jesus is alive and is physically present according to His word in Holy Communion. I believe in miracles. I believe in revelation. I believe the Bible is inerrant - including Genesis 1-11. I perhaps recite the scientifically-unverifiable Nicene Creed more often than Blundell does as part of my liturgical duties. But I find it bizarre that Blundell would mock an opponent for accepting the demand curve axiomatically when he has an entire epistemology that defies science and reason.

Moreover, as a Roman Catholic, Blundell may be more of a "fundamentalist" than I am. For he holds to other dogmatic beliefs apart from scripture, such as the immaculate conception, a teaching that the virgin Mary was herself conceived without sin. I have no problem with this belief, and lean toward it myself - but I'm not dogmatic about it as scripture is silent on the matter. Blundell (again, presuming his Catholicism) must accept this dogma because it has been declaredex cathedra, infallibly, by the bishop of Rome in 1854, as a matter of faith and morals. Again, I don't know if there have been any studies on immaculate conceptions or papal infallibility, but I suspect not. Roman Catholics also believe in transubstantiation, which posits that the bread and wine cease being bread and wine when they are consecrated, that the body and blood of Christ only appear to be bread and wine, a kind of illusion to the senses. I wonder what a scientific study of consecrated elements taken from a Catholic altar would show?

But Block is the "fundamentalist" for believing in the demand curve.

Blundell also attempted to change the topic of the debate into a debunking of libertarianism. He based this largely on a statistic in which he claims a study shows 94% of libertarians are white. Most of them are also male. Therefore they are wrong (is his implication).

The fallacious (if not racist) logic is pretty clear here. And I think it is rhetorically quite obvious that Blundell is seeking to appeal to emotion instead of reason. I wonder if the 94% figure is limited to Americans or includes the entire world? Korea is nowhere near 94% white. And yet, the South is much more libertarian than the North - and is also much more prosperous than the North, which is by contrast repressive and very un-libertarian. This great libertarian divide across Korea has nothing to do with being male or Caucasian.

Likewise the difference between East and West Germany, or between capitalist Hong Kong and mainland Communist China - are not race-based and clearly show (or at least strongly imply) the superior power of markets to raise the standard of living far greater than legislative "solutions," which based on the twentieth century alone, are a proven path to poverty if not the concentration camp and the Gulag.

And if being white and male is an indicator of being wrong economically, there is one area in which I might be tempted to agree with Dr. Blundell. For the whitest, most male bastion in history is the papacy. And the bishops of Rome are pretty dismal when it comes to the "dismal science" of Economics (though to give my Roman Catholic brethren credit where credit is due, there was a school of 16th century Jesuits who would have tracked with Block in this debate!).

Perhaps Dr. Blundell isn't cut out to debate Economics with an economist - especially the likes of a Walter Block. It becomes painfully apparent upon watching this debate. It was a rather one-sided affair, and is almost embarrassing after a certain point. Dr. Blundell is simply outgunned intellectually. And though Dr. Block is in no wise a Christian man, I would like to take the liberty to describe his gracious and gentlemanly demeanor toward Dr. Blundell - who, by contrast, displayed rather crude and provocative conduct toward his opponent, in my opinion - to have been truly "Christian" in his respect, humility, restraint and human decency in response.

Jesus told us to be loving toward those who hate us. And I admit that Dr. Block seems to do a better job of it than I do.

Thank you, as always, to Dr. Walter Block for defending liberty even when it is unpopular to do so.

Monday, April 28, 2014

This past Saturday (April 26) I had the privilege and honor to give the invocation and benediction at an event sponsored by the Gretna Historical Society. It was a wreath ceremony at the monument of Louis Oscar Fried (pronounced "freed"), who died 100 years ago this month.

Fried was a Navy seaman and was among the first casualties of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Veracruz - part of the little-studied or remembered period of the "banana wars." Fried was the youngest of the seven children of Matthew and Mary (Meisner) Fried of Gretna, and was only nineteen years old when he died on the first day of the battle. After a long trip home via New York City, his body lay in state at the Jefferson Parish Courthouse (currently Gretna City Hall) on Copernicus Avenue (since renamed Huey P. Long) and was watched over by a Naval Color Guard.

On May 15, 1914, ten thousand people turned out for his burial at Hook and Ladder Cemetery on Lafayette Street in Gretna. His tomb and monument had been donated by thousands of people giving small offerings to help the family with expenses. The beautiful marble obelisk is the tallest structure in the cemetery to this day. This was, and still is, the largest funeral in the history of Gretna. The day was declared a city holiday for workers and school children, and ferries busily shuttled thousands of mourners across the river from New Orleans.

Pastor Wismar of Salem - Gretna in a 1910 picture, front row, first from the right

The funeral was conducted at Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church on 4th Street (where the Fried family were all active members) by my predecessor, the Rev. A Wismar (seen here in 1910, front row, all the way to the right). Of course, only a fraction of the crowd could be accommodated in the church building. The procession on foot made its way to the monument at Hook and Ladder, where many of us in turn gathered 100 years later to honor Louis Oscar Fried and to commemorate this unique and extraordinary event in Gretna. Never before or since has there been such an outpouring of support, compassion, and community solidarity to honor a son of Gretna and to comfort his grieving family.

I would like to thank historian and writer Sevilla Finley for organizing this event and allowing me the privilege to offer the prayers (not to mention for sending me many of these pictures), as well as Paul Coles, president of the Gretna Historical Society for his enthusiastic leadership and tireless devotion to our city and its noble heritage. Several family members were present to participate in the event, along with Gretna's mayor Belinda Constant and a representative of the president of Jefferson Parish. Just as was the case a century ago, a Naval color guard was present at the monument (which had also been magnificently cleaned and restored in preparation for the centennial).

Rev. Larry Beane

My invocation follows:

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Lord God, heavenly Father, we give you thanks for the privilege to gather here in Your name, in this sacred place, to remember, to ponder, to meditate, and to pay tribute to Your servant Louis Oscar Fried.

We do so, O Lord, with both sadness and joy, calling to mind the extraordinary events of a hundred years ago that culminated on this very spot.

We call to mind the shock and the grief suffered by the Fried family, his mother and father, his immediate family and those whose lives were changed with that somber knock at the door and the dreaded words, "We regret to inform you..." We are reminded of the grief of his church family, his community, his city, state, and nation, mourning for a 19-year old cut down in his promising youth wearing the uniform of his country.

And yet there is also joy, O Lord, in knowing how this community rallied to comfort the Fried family, how our forbears came together in respect, love, and in patriotic and religious duty, to help this family bear the cross.

We pray for all those in our current age who are likewise visited by the shock and grief of death: the wages of sin and the consequence of the Fall in Eden. We pray that we may meet our obligations to those today who have sworn to defend our country and its people. We pray that our elected officials would only send our young men, and now our young women as well, into harm's way only as a last resort, only after sober reflection, and only in accordance with the Constitution and the Christian principles of just war. We pray for peace, O Lord, and we pray that current and future generations would take to heart the example of the people of Gretna in 1914 in showing compassion and tribute to a fallen brother.

Finally, O Lord, we call to mind an earlier April, an earlier death of a young Man, who was likewise laid into a tomb provided for Him by donation, a tomb He left behind empty, giving the promise of the resurrection of the dead. We await this resurrection , O Lord, with joy, knowing that by the death and resurrection of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, Louis Oscar Fried and all Your saints will rise again bodily, and we will meet him in the flesh, even as our Savior Jesus Christ has conquered death and atoned for the sins of the world.

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Dear
Deb, Danielle, Holly, Lorraine, family, friends, brothers and sisters in
Christ, and honored guests. As our Lord
said to His disciples upon rising from the dead: “Peace be with you.”

I
know that for Doyle’s family, this has been one of the hardest and most trying weeks
of your lives. And I also know that it
has been a time of love and comfort and closeness within your family. Your church family grieves with you as well,
and supports you during this time of sadness and loss.

Sometimes
people will try to bring comfort to those who mourn by saying things that are
just not true. But here is what is true,
dear friends:

Death
is not a part of life. Death is not
natural. Death is not our friend. Death is the enemy. It is ugly and unnatural. It is the opposite of life. Death is the wages of sin. Death is what each one of us deserves because
of our own sins and because of the original sin of Adam and Even in the
Garden. For their sinful nature has been
handed down to us ever since. Death is
bitter and awful. There is nothing good
about it.

There
is an ancient statue that says all of this without a single word. It’s known as the Pieta. It shows Mary holding the lifeless body of
her Son Jesus in her arms. [The casket
selected by Doyle’s family has this powerful image on it, around the base]. The pain and anguish on the face of our
Lord’s mother captures the grief of a mother mourning her beloved Son. It powerfully illustrates the pain caused by
death – which even came to our Lord Jesus Christ. And the reason is sin. Not His, but ours.

For
as we all confessed together in the very words of scripture: “If we say we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” And our only hope is to have a champion who
can forgive our sins and conquer death for us.
And that Champion is our Lord Jesus Christ, who died in order that we
may live. He paid for our sins at the
cross, and as St. Paul teaches us in the Book of Romans, when we are baptized
into the Lord, we are baptized into His death, and St. Paul then explains: “If
we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united
with Him in a resurrection like His.”

But
living in this fallen world as we do, dear friends, we all experience the loss
of our loved ones. There are no
exceptions. It is part of the world we
live in, a fallen world of sin and suffering.
And it comes to all of us, whether we are 27 years old, 107 years old,
or 7 days old. No-one is exempt from
death, and our loved ones will grieve – even as we will grieve our loved ones.

To
deal with this reality, some people just never think about it or talk about
it. Some people deal with it by making
up stories about people becoming angels or ghosts or by believing that death
simply ends our existence. Some people
believe in things like reincarnation.
But we have the explanation, dear brothers and sisters. We know why we die, and we know what
happens. And as sad as we are to lose Doyle
in this life, on this side of the grave, there is happiness and joy for all
Christians in eternity who die in the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ!

For
the same lifeless body held in the arms of His mother, the body of Jesus, was
laid into a tomb, and on the third day, He rose again. And He promises the same resurrection to His
redeemed people, as St. Mark teaches us in his Gospel: “Whoever believes and is
baptized will be saved.”

The
resurrection of Jesus is not a myth or a story.
Even the enemies of Jesus could not explain away the empty tomb. You can still visit it today, as today it is
a church. It’s still there. We celebrate something remarkable during this
Easter season, because it is not our common experience for people to simply
rise from the dead so as to live forever.
But this is true for Jesus, and true for us Christians. For the one who rose that first Easter
promises that we too will rise, that our bodies will be raised just like the magnificent
vision that Ezekiel saw of the dry bones being reassembled in the valley,
covered with flesh, and having the spirit breathed into them. “Thus says the Lord to these bones: Behold, I
will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live…. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I
open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you
shall live.”

This
is a promise from Him who rose from the dead and came back to tell us all about
it. He promises that we shall live.

But
it is hard to believe, isn’t it? To see
a casket closed makes it difficult to imagine our graves being opened. But that is the promise. And it is okay that this is tough to
believe. For think about Thomas, dear
friends. All over the world, this very week,
Christians have listened to the Gospel account of Doubting Thomas. In his own grief, he struggled to believe.

Jesus
came to Him, not to scold or condemn, but to save, saying: “Peace be with you”
and showing Thomas His wounded hands and side.
Thomas then believed in Jesus, saying, “My Lord and my God.”

Jesus
lovingly invited Thomas, saying: “Do not disbelieve, but believe.” And then Jesus, speaking about all of us,
says: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Jesus
is speaking of faith, of belief. That,
dear friends, makes all the difference.
Yes, we mourn, but not in the same way as unbelievers do. For we have hope. Hope of eternal life, hope of the forgiveness
of sins, hope of a reunion with Doyle and with all those who died in
Christ. That hope is borne of the Word,
as St. John said to us again: “Jesus did many other signs… which are not
written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His
name.”

That
same apostle John also testifies in God’s Word: “Whoever believes in the Son of
God has the testimony in himself.”

And
he says: “Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the
world – our faith. Who is it that
overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

Dear
friends, Mary’s grief-stricken face was to be replaced by unspeakable joy as
her Son rose again from the dead. And better
even than that, Jesus offers eternal life to all who are baptized and who
believe. Jesus overcomes sin and death
and the grave. Jesus conquers Satan on
our behalf.

Jesus lives! The
victory's won!

Death no longer can appall
me;

Jesus lives! Death's
reign is done!

From the grave will Christ
recall me.

Brighter scenes will then
commence;

This shall be my
confidence.

“Peace
be with you.”

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

His

on the sickness of sinto
the next - and d w liars and sons of the devil, tament, a bloodye people on In the name of the Father and of the + Son and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

What
makes us Christians different than everyone else is not that we’re better than
anyone else, not that we have earned our salvation by our good works, and not
that we know some secret knowledge. What
makes us different, dear brothers and sisters of our risen Lord Jesus Christ,
is our confession.

For
we confess about Jesus what St. Thomas, sometimes called the Doubter, himself confessed:
“My Lord and my God!” But Thomas’s
confession took some convincing. Thomas
was plagued by sin, including the sin of doubting the very Word of God. Thomas did not believe that our Lord had
risen from the dead, because Thomas doubted the divinity of Jesus. Thomas had not yet been converted to the
religion of the crucified and resurrected Jesus, the only religion that
promises forgiveness of sins and eternal life by virtue of the grace and mercy
of God, won for us at the cross, and confirmed for us at the empty tomb. St. Thomas had ceased being a Christian, and
had fallen away from the true faith, that Jesus Christ is true God and true
Man, that He came “by water and blood” and that “the Spirit is the one who
testifies.”

And
as St. John also reveals to us by that same Spirit: “Whoever believes in the
Son of God has the testimony in himself.
Whoever does not believe God, has made him a liar, because he has not
believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning His Son.”

And
in His mercy, our Lord Jesus Christ comes to Thomas. He doesn’t come to scold or to condemn, but
the Good Shepherd comes to comfort and to re-gather Thomas into the flock of
His beloved sheep. He greets the disciples
as He so often does: “Peace be with you!”

A week before the reconversion of St. Thomas, the Lord had appeared to the
other disciples. At that point, He
breathed on them and gave them the Holy Spirit, the one who testifies to the
truth. And He also authorized them to
forgive sins under His command and authority.

Thomas was not present that first time.
The Lord allowed him to spend a week wrestling with the testimony of
those given the Holy Spirit to forgive and to testify in the name of Jesus. And when our Lord appeared to Thomas, when
the Lord manifested Himself physically, it was then that Thomas confesses: “My
Lord and my God!”

The
fact that God is a Man is part of that testimony given by the Holy Spirit,
testimony that can either be believed or rejected. The fact that God took human flesh, that God
was born to a mother, that God experienced life in our fallen world without
sin, was condemned by our sinfulness, was crucified, died, and was buried, and
who rose again to offer Himself to us in Word and Sacrament, so that we might
be saved from sin and death – is difficult to believe. In fact, we say it together with our brothers
and sisters around the world as we confess: “I believe that I cannot by my own
reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the
Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts,
sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”

In
the same way, the Spirit led Thomas to His confession, as the Lord Jesus Christ
used His Word and His flesh to invigorate Thomas with the very faith by which
he receives God’s grace, receiving eternal life as evidenced by that bold and
death-defying confession: “My Lord and my God!”

And
as St. John, who reports these events to us himself confesses: “These things
are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that by believing you may have life in His name.”

There
are many ways to doubt this truth, this testimony, this confession of the one
true faith. Many believe Jesus is only a
man, now dead, nothing more nothing less.
Others believe that Jesus is some kind of angel or saint. Others deny the true humanity of our Lord,
considering Him to be some kind of consciousness or energy. Others believe in false gods, be they made of
wood or metal, or gods made out of money, entertainment, or the self. Some desperately want to believe, but are
dying for their lack of contact with the very Word of life that will restore
and revive them, as our Lord did to Thomas.

Dear
friends, we are like the dry bones in the valley that Ezekiel saw while “in the
Spirit of the Lord.” And though the
bones were dry, disconnected, and lacking flesh, Ezekiel saw them transform
before his very eyes. He watched the
Lord reassemble them in their flesh and breathe life and spirit into them. He watched them rise again, a
resurrection. And He heard the Lord
speak a promise: “I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O My
people…. And I will put My Spirit within
you, and you shall live…. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have
spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”

Dear
friends, amid the world’s mockery and disbelief, amid the maze of false
doctrine and confused cults, amid a culture that openly embraces evil, amid the
sinful nature of our own flesh, amid a life in which Satan is the prince of
this world, amid an existence in which we must always confront death and
mortality, by virtue of the Word and in debt to our Lord who likewise manifests
Himself to us in His very flesh and blood, by the Spirit’s testimony of the
truth, and through the proclamation of men speaking by Christ’s command and
authority, we confess with St. Thomas concerning our Lord Jesus Christ: “My
Lord and my God!”

He
is a Lord and God who is merciful. He is
a Lord and God who saves us. He is a
Lord and God who comes to us as a human being.
He is a Lord and God who dies for us to redeem us. He is a Lord and God who rose from the dead,
and who promises resurrection to all who are baptized and who believe.

Let
us receive the blessing of Peace from our risen Lord as we too meet Him in His
wounded flesh and shed blood in a communion even more wonderful than the
communion our Lord shared with Thomas in His gracious invitation to examine His
wounds.

Let us examine our own wounds, let us examine our consciences and our sins, and
let us confess “My Lord and my God” of Him who has come that “by believing” we
“may have life in His name.”

“My
Lord and my God!” Amen.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

His

on
the sickness of sinto the next - and d w liars and sons of the devil, tament, a
bloodye people on In the name of the
Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

There
is a theme we see in the movies in which there is to be a wedding, and the
bride or the groom is stood up at the altar.
Often such films are romantic comedies, even though when such things
happen in real life, as they rarely, but sometimes do, they are a source of
great pain and hurt to those left standing at the altar.

And so maybe we turn such darkness into comedy as a way of sort-of whistling in
the graveyard. It is a common human fear
to be left alone, to be deserted by our loved ones, to be abandoned. And so by making a bit of fun, maybe that is
our way of dealing with our deepest, darkest fears.

But
there is a fear that is even worse than abandonment: the fear of death. For we can recover from all sorts of physical
and psychological pain, but death is not something we can heal from and get up
and just walk away from.

Or
is it?

For
the events of the first Easter morning are a comedy of a sort, a joyful turn of
events that makes us cheer and sing for joy!
It is something that is even more out of place and remarkable than being
left standing at the altar. For at the
first Easter, “very early on the first day of the week,” people came to a tomb
to ceremonially anoint a body, a funeral service of sorts, but the guest of
honor was not there. He didn’t show
up. In the ultimate comedic twist in the
plot, the one to be embalmed had gotten up and walked away from His own
funeral. He stood up His own funeral
guests. He left them standing at the
grave.

Jesus
has done more than whistle in the graveyard – He got up and went for a walk,
exiting the tomb that was unable to contain Him. He overcame man’s greatest fear and overpowered
man’s greatest enemy. The victorious
Jesus openly mocked sin, death, and the devil by destroying them at the cross,
and then by triumphing over them at the tomb, the very location that Satan
hoped would become a monument to the power of evil. Satan’s hopes are all in vain, dear friends. Instead, the empty tomb is a monument of
love, a real physical place where Christians visit every day, it is today a
church where the risen Christ is proclaimed to the entire world, a holy altar
where the guest of honor has caused the whole Church on earth and in heaven to
join His feast of victory, saying with St. Paul: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

And
though our Lord was abandoned by nearly everyone during the most horrific week
in the life of anyone: being betrayed by Judas, being denied by Peter, being left
standing by the other disciples – as well as being beaten, scourged, mocked,
and crucified by the very people He came to save – He did not abandon us. No, dear friends. He died for us, He rose for us, He comes back
to us to rescue us, and He forgives us. He
has promised never to forsake us.

“For
I know that my Redeemer lives!”

And
as part and parcel of dying to forgive us, and rising for our justification, He
has also disarmed death, so that we shall “put on the imperishable” and “put on
immortality.” Jesus has taken away the
sting by suffering the pain for us.
Jesus has taken away our guilt by bearing the punishment for us. Jesus has taken away death by dying for
us. And He has done so out of love for us
poor, miserable sinners who have been redeemed, though we most certainly do not
deserve it.

That
is the message of hope the Church has for the world. It is a message of rebirth and restoration,
of rejuvenation and renewal. It is the
triumph of peace over war, of life over death, of joy over sadness, and good
over evil. It is the victory given to us
as a gift, and it has been signed, sealed, and delivered by the cross, received
by baptism, and made our very own by faith.

And
maybe the world’s current fascination with stories of the walking dead, with
zombies, and other comical depictions of death is just another way of whistling
in the graveyard. But the Church of the
risen Lord Jesus Christ, especially on this day, celebrates the only one to truly
walk out of His tomb by His own power, not as a grotesque dead man walking, but
as a gloriously living man who is God, graciously forgiving sins and gloriously
giving life.

And
unlike the poor bride who has been stood up at the altar, the Church is the
Bride of Christ, whose Bridegroom has instead stood up death at the tomb, who
stands up and appears to the world arisen and glorified, and who promises that
nothing shall ever separate Bride and Groom at His holy altar. He will never leave nor abandon His people. Death no more has dominion over Him, and
death can frighten us no more.

And
what’s more, He is here with His Bride at the altar week in and week out, in
His Word, in the Gospel, in His body, and in His blood. He continues to live not merely at the right
hand of God in heaven, but wherever two or three are gathered in His name. He lives not in some kind of figurative way
of speaking, not in some kind of fuzzy spiritual way, and not as a warm memory
in our hearts, but, dear brothers and sisters, He lives literally, in the
flesh, gathering with us in a glorious and victorious bodily way in Holy
Communion, in a way that confounds the devil and declares victory every time
the Church gathers in His name. “And He
will come again to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have
no end.”

And
like the story of a bride left standing at the altar causes us to cringe with
awkwardness, so too does the Lord Jesus perplex His followers when He left
behind an empty tomb. “Do not be
alarmed,” says the mysterious young man in the white robe. “He has risen.” Against all expectation, and in defiance of
any script that anyone would ever write, the angel invites the stunned women to
look around the empty tomb. And then he
gives them a job: “But go, tell His disciples and Peter that He is going before
you to Galilee. There you will see Him,
just as He told you.”

The
situation of being stood up at the funeral is awkward, joyful, frightening, and
surreal for these women, these unlikely first messengers of the resurrection,
who had come for a funeral, but who left with remarkable and world-changing
good news to tell. “Trembling and
astonishment had seized them…. For they were afraid.”

But
their shock was soon to yield to unspeakable happiness, and the awkwardness of
being left at the tomb is to be replaced by the joy that has filled the Church with
faith and hope for nearly twenty centuries.
The soon-to-be-apostles, who received word of this good news from the
women, would themselves see the risen Lord many times, and would fan out around
the known world, bearing witness to the resurrection, baptizing and preaching
in His name and by His command, making disciples and spreading this good news
that death is done for, that sin has been forgiven, that Satan has been
conquered, and that the fallen world as we know it has been turned upside down
by our Lord who has redeemed us.

“I
know that my redeemer lives!” Amen.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

His

on
the sickness of sinto the next - and d w liars and sons of the devil, tament, a
bloodye people on In the name of the
Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Friday, April 18, 2014

In
Luther’s hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” we sing that when it comes to
the devil, “one little word can fell him.”
Dr. Luther doesn’t tell us what word he had in mind, but a good
candidate for such a single word appears in St. John’s detailed and agonizing account
of our Lord’s crucifixion. It is a
single Greek word: Τετέλεσται. It is one
little word, but we need three English words to translate it: “It is finished.”

“It
is finished!”

The
English doesn’t really capture the meaning of the original language. It’s really a daring and gutsy word,
approaching what we might even call “trash talk.” It is a declaration of conquest over a
vanquished foe. It is a fist raised
triumphantly. It is the war cry of the
survivor. It is a celebration that one’s
mission has been accomplished. It is the
ticker-tape parade. It is a shout of joy
and of happiness. It is victory.

“It
is finished!”

And
here, in the account of our Lord’s death, it seems so out of place – at least when
said by Jesus as He bows His head and gives up His spirit. It is not what we would expect at all.

Judas
might have said: “It is finished” when his plan to betray Jesus bore fruit (as
well as a payday). But Judas ended up
hanging himself. Peter might have
shouted “It is finished” after playing the hero and slicing off Malchus’s ear,
but instead he took a scolding from Jesus and then turned into a sniveling coward. The soldiers who arrested Jesus, mocked him,
beat him, flogged him, and crucified him might have claimed victory by saying:
“It is finished,” a term they knew from their military careers, but they ended
up with a few pieces of cloth and wringing their hands in fear of the day’s
events, proclaimed Jesus to have been righteous. The high priest and the Sanhedrin might have
proclaimed, “It is finished,” after illegally putting Jesus on trial and
successfully getting him crucified by the Romans, but in fact they became
shameful collaborators with their occupiers, murderers of one of their own. Pilate might have claimed the right to boast,
“It is finished,” when he asserted Rome’s power, but all he did was put an
innocent man to death because of cowardice, unmanly fear of those over whom he
ruled.

Finally,
Satan ought to have been able to claim “It is finished,” because of the
crucifixion of Jesus, having murdered God in the flesh, having placed Him in unspeakable
agony, and having wrought cosmic havoc on the earth and seemingly making chaos
among the Godhead. But, the crucifixion
of Jesus was the very crushing of the serpent’s head prophesied in the Garden
of Eden. For in paying for our sins at
the cross, our Lord Jesus Christ freed us from Satan’s power, liberated us from
the curse of death, and redeemed us from our rightfully earned place in
hell. The hateful Satan has been
thoroughly defeated by the greatest act of love in all of history.

And
so, contrary to what reason may tell us, against all expectation, and beyond
every expression of love ever imagined, our Lord Jesus Christ truly won this
greatest battle ever in the history of the universe. He has conquered the old evil foe, the serpent,
Satan, our accuser, the tempter, the father of lies, the destroyer, the one
whose rebellion inflicted sin upon God’s good creation. With this one word, “It is finished,” his
power was broken. With this one word, he
has been reduced to being of less worth than the lowliest one celled
animal. With this one word, he has
become not merely impotent, but mortal.
With this one word, Jesus has signed the death warrant of the devil. Such is the power of the Word.

“It
is finished!”

To
a world that admires Satan, that hates God and His commandments, that revels in
sin, that worships raw power, that calls evil good, and good evil, that places
a premium on selfish gain and holds love in contempt, to a world that loves to
mock, that thrills at the spectacle of human beings suffering and being put to
death, that cozies up to injustice if it appears to be beneficial, that lives
only for the moment without regard to eternity – our Lord’s crucifixion appears
to be the ultimate victory of evil over good.

Jesus
was utterly overpowered, humiliated, inflicted with pain, robbed of all respect
– and this was the master-stroke, the genius of the plan. For in dying, Jesus destroyed death; in His
obedience, Jesus overcame our disobedience; in suffering for us, His act of supreme
love trumped all hatred. And on this
Friday nearly two thousand years ago, good triumphed eternally over evil.

“It
is finished!”

The
prophet Isaiah, who lived seven centuries before these events, who was likewise
saved by our Lord’s sacrifice upon the cross, whom we joined in the liturgy
singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” before the Triune God, and who suffered in his
earthly life for the sake of his preaching about the coming Messiah, calling
his countrymen to repent, whose preaching was largely ignored, Isaiah likewise
joins with our Lord in crying out: “It is finished!” For he prophesied about the cross, and indeed,
it came to pass.

“It
is finished!”

St.
Paul, who suffered beatings and stonings and imprisonments for the name of
Christ, whose preaching was attacked and whose confession of Christ earned him
reproach in the community, and who was finally beheaded for the sake of His
Lord by a tyrannical Caesar – likewise joins in unison with our Lord: “It is
finished!” “For,” St. Paul confesses,
“the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has
died for all.”

“It
is finished!”

And
we, with blessed Isaiah, with St. Paul, with our Lord and Savior, the crucified
One, Jesus Christ, with all the saints of every time and place, with angels and
archangels and all the company of heaven, cry out on this day that so baffles
the world, the day of our Master’s death, a day for which we have the audacity
to call “good,” celebrating the cross – a symbol of death, singing in a voice
so united and so victorious that it causes Satan and his demons to cringe in
terror, and rocks the very foundations of hell itself: “It is finished!”

For
we confess with St. Paul: “For our sake, He made Him to be sin, so that in Him
we might become the righteousness of God.”

Our
sins are no more, dear friends. They are
forgiven. They have been expunged by the
blood of the Lamb Victorious. Our death
is no longer something to be feared. It
has been ransomed for life – the life of our Lord given to us on the cross and
shared with us in His holy body and blood.
Satan is no more a foe to be feared, for he was defeated by his own
plot, luring Judas to deliver Jesus over to the very cross upon which He would
defeat the forces of evil and finally deal the prophetic mortal blow to the
devil.

It
is finished, dear brothers and sisters.
That one little word makes all the difference in the world, in the
cosmos, in the heavens themselves. That
one little word transforms our lives and the lives of all who are baptized and
believe. That one little word fells the
devil and brings immortality and eternal joy to us. Τετέλεσται!

“It
is finished!” Amen.

His

on
the sickness of sinto the next - and d w liars and sons of the devil, tament, a
bloodye people on In the name of the
Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Even
on the night before He was betrayed, even the day before His crucifixion, our
Lord Jesus Christ is clearing up misunderstandings about Christianity – not
with the Pharisees and the chief priests and the scribes, not with the Romans
and the Pagans, not even with his rank and file followers – but with the very ones
who will be sent out to preach as ordained ministers of the Word within a few
weeks.

The
soon-to-be apostles still do not understand the essence of what their Master is
teaching them.

For
all religions – Christianity included – make a common observation that the
world is messed up. There is injustice,
pain, ugliness, and death. All religions
teach that such things are off-script, unintended consequences of something
gone haywire in creation. And so the
natural inclination of man is to fix the problem using brainpower, reason, and
maybe a little duct tape.

We
think we can fix the world’s brokenness by following a few simple rules. And even Christians sometimes fall into the
trap of believing that Christianity teaches that we can restore this paradise
(usually described incompletely as “going to heaven when we die”) by simply
obeying the Ten Commandments. We apply
worldly reason to the problem of the corruption of sin, and this is what all of
the religions of the world come up with: “Follow the rules.”

Except
for the religion of Jesus Christ. Except
for the only religion that is actually true.

For
if we could fix the problem using reason and rules, we would not need a
Savior. And so the Savior saves us by
correcting us. Our corruption is so
great that we cannot save ourselves by willpower, by resolving to follow
rules. We need to be cleansed. We need a bath. And it is a kind of bath that doesn’t merely
remove dirt from the surface of the body.
We need washed from embedded sin and corruption in a way that transcends
nature and reason and human limitation.

And
in order to teach this radical truth called “Christianity”, Jesus “laid aside
His outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around His waist. Then He poured water into a basin and began
to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped
around Him.”

Our
Lord is not interpreting the Ten Commandments with clever loopholes to make
them accessible as the Pharisees did.
Our Lord is not interpreting the scriptures as mythology the way the
Sadducees did. He doesn’t say that
everything is meaningless the way some of the Greek philosophers did. He doesn’t teach that the body is bad and the
spirit is good the way the Greeks and Romans did and the way Eastern religions
continue to do. He doesn’t condemn the
drinking of alcohol and dancing and other joyful acts that can and are done
innocently and responsibly, the way some Christian groups do. Instead, He gives a lesson on the need to be
cleansed from our sins, and He points us to Holy Baptism – which in a few weeks
after His resurrection, He will send the eleven out to do as the means of
making disciples. He is about to give
them the Lord’s Supper, which He will ordain the eleven to celebrate and
consecrate. And He teaches us about the
very thing that overcomes our sinful nature, and that is love.

Peter’s
rational and worldly side initially rejects this new religion in which the
Savior serves and the saved are served.
But Jesus converts Peter to the true faith by means of His Word, saying,
“If I do not wash you, you have no share with Me.” Peter’s conversion is complete, as He
confesses: “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head.”

Cleanliness,
indeed, is next to godliness, but Jesus is pointing to a genuine and complete cleansing,
not merely of grease and dirt and paint and sweat under the fingernails, but
rather of the total corruption of sin that soils us in body and spirit. That cannot be removed by water alone, but
rather by water administered by Jesus according to His Word and promise.

Our
Lord commands the eleven to “love one another: just as I have loved you, you
are also to love one another.” “For I
have given you an example, that you should do just as I have done to you.” He does not command them to love and to
follow His example because it will save them, as the false religions
teach. But rather for the advance of the
kingdom: “By this,” He says, “all people will know that you are My disciples,
if you have love for one another.”

Dear
friends, this is not an eleventh commandment, it is the essence of all the
commandments – which we fail so miserably at keeping. But it is also the essence of Jesus as
Savior, as the incarnate love of God, as the mercy of the Father in the flesh,
as the head, heart, and hands through which the Holy Spirit calls us and
cleanses us. The love of Jesus is
manifested in the washing of Holy Baptism, in which the promise of salvation is
given. Our Lord asks all of us, “Do you
understand what I have done to you?”

He
has cleansed us, forgiven us, redeemed us, saved us, restored us, and given us
the free gift of eternal life – by means of the promise of God, the covenant,
the New Testament in His body and blood.

There
is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for His friends. And even when we were yet His enemies, Christ
loved us by shedding His blood for us, by cleansing us through water and the
Word, and by offering, that is sacrificing, Himself for us men and for our
salvation in sharing with us the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves of
His body and of the miracle of changing mere wine into a wine that is also His
blood: blood that cleanses the spirit by being taken bodily, blood that
cleanses the body for everlasting life by renewing the spirit.

For
this cleansing is our Passover. The Lord
shares it with the church of every time and place, and calls men to administer
these Holy Sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. The Lord calls all men and women to partake
of this cleansing, to become disciples, to be baptized and eat and drink of
this sacrifice, and to participate in the one thing that bears the promise to fix
us and recreate the world. And what
fixes us, dear friends, is not reason, know-how, will power, or duct tape. It is the love of God made manifest in the
flesh, offered at the cross, shared by means of the Word, Holy Baptism, Holy
Communion, and all of the promises given thereunder.

The
only solution is love. What fixes us is
love. What recreates the world is
love. And that, dear brothers and
sisters, is the Christian faith. It is
Christ’s love. Amen.

His

on
the sickness of sinto the next - and d w liars and sons of the devil, tament, a
bloodye people on In the name of the
Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Today
is a both/and day in the church year. It
is both Lent and a celebration. It is
both Palm Sunday and the Sunday of the Passion.
It is a day of two Gospels, the first of which welcomes the King with
royal palms and cheers, and the other which crucifies the King with criminals
nails in his hands and jeers.

And
yet, these are not two accounts of two different men, but one account in one
week in the life of the greatest Man who ever lived, who lives yet, and who has
not just changed the world but who has remade the entire universe. And He did so while dying on a cross.

Moreover,
dear friends, He did not do it for glory or money, nor even to win the favor of
God and man. Rather He did it for us, He
“emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness
of men,” and yet who is God. He did not
carry out this mission to serve Himself but to rescue us – from sin, from
death, and from the devil. He did it not
motivated by the adoring crowds, but rather in spite of the hateful
crowds. He did it motivated by love: obedient
love for His Father and in saving love toward us “poor miserable sinners.”

And
just as the crowds waved palms and sang “Hosanna,” crying out to the King for
salvation, so do we, dear friends, waving branches and singing our Hosannas, we
thank and praise Him for the salvation He won for us at the cross, salvation
earned by blood and given to us in our baptism, delivered to us through our
faith which He Himself gives us as a gracious gift, and presented to us in the
flesh every time we partake of His body and blood.

And
in the midst of the joyful paradox, we are saddened by the spectacle of it all:
the cheering crowds who would turn deadly, the betrayal with a kiss, the
hypocritical religious leaders, the police and soldiers who betray the public
trust in their service by becoming thugs, the government that was there to
protect and to serve becoming shameless murderers and purveyors of injustice,
the crowds whom Jesus came to save becoming a lynch mob. The cowardly disciples who scattered. Peter who denied, repeatedly. The abuse heaped upon Him in His dying
woes. The mockery of the true
criminals. The thorns. The nails.
The spear. The bitter gall to
drink. The frightening darkness. The tearing of the temple curtain. The death of God Himself.

And
amid all of this confusing and disturbing turn of events, dear friends, this is
how we have been redeemed and how creation is being renewed. For the lifeless body of Jesus was borne to a
tomb that could not contain Him. The
ones who fled gathered anew. The cursed
serpent who cleverly asked Eve: “Did God actually say?” has heard the sentence
of death from the lips of the human body of God. Death itself was forced to yield to the
author of life.

And
out of death came life. Out of darkness
came light. Out of betrayal came
love. Out of the cross came redemption. Out of the side of Jesus flowed water and
blood, out of which Christians are born of water and the blood and the
Word. And once more, the children of God
sing Hosannas and wave palms. The king
no more wears a crown of thorns, but the crown of righteousness. He is no more knelt to in mockery, for “at
the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the
earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father.”

We
kneel before our Lord, we worship the crucified One, we eat and drink His blood
shed for us for the forgiveness of sins, we pray, praise and give thanks, we
acknowledge our King for His substitutionary death for us, we celebrate with
joy and humility our place in His kingdom though we are the ones who deserve to
have been crucified. We celebrate the
Lord’s victory over death and the grave, and we glory in the triumph of the
evil one whose lies in the Garden of Eden brought about destruction and death
in the first place.

Dear
friends, even as the Book of Revelation tells of the saints in heaven dressed
in white robes, waving palms, and singing the praises of the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world, so too do we join Christians around the world
in taking up our own palms, knowing that this most Holy Week will see Passion
Sunday lead us to Good Friday and to Easter Sunday. The purple and black will yield to white,
celebration will return to our liturgy, and we will be unable to contain our
joy any more than the gloomy grave could contain the beaming countenance of the
Risen Lord Jesus Christ.

Let
us wave these branches and hail our King, knowing that His mission is not to
create a worldly kingdom, but to create a kingdom of a new world. Let us sing Hosanna to our King, knowing that
He is not a ruler like Caesar to whom we are forced to bow, but that He is a
ruler like King David, the man after God’s heart, before whom we gladly kneel,
and to whom He gives crowns, making us kings and priests with Him for all
eternity.

Moreover,
this king exacts no taxes, but pays us the dividend of the forgiveness of sins. This king does not conscript and send us to
war, but has won the war for us. This
king does not seize our possessions, but shares all good things with us. This king does not restrict our liberty, but
gives us true liberty that the world cannot give, that is, freedom from the
bondage of sin and from the tyranny of Satan.
And unlike other kings in history, this King did not build a tomb to
glorify Himself, but was placed into a borrowed grave, from which He departed,
an edifice which became a church, that is, a place from which the Gospel of His
word and sacrament flow to His grateful subjects.

And
this church is where we gather, dear friends, to receive the gifts of our king,
where we are given anew the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. Today is a both/and day for us who are both
sinners and saints! Let us sing for joy
even amid Lent. Let us give thanks for
both the cross and the empty tomb, looking forward to both Good Friday and
Easter.

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is
He, humble and mounted on a donkey.”

Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” Hosanna in the highest! Amen.

His

on
the sickness of sinto the next - and d w liars and sons of the devil, tament, a
bloodye people on In the name of the
Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

The
world has a message for the church: “Don’t judge me!” And the world often reminds the church of our
Lord’s words: “Judge not.” And so the
church is often bullied into silence.
For according to the world, the church is to have nothing to say to
matters of good and evil, of ethics and morality, as though there is no
difference between the ethical systems of Adolph Hitler and Mother Teresa.

“Don’t judge me!” we are told. And
sometimes we are told such things by judges in black robes.

But here we are in the church’s week of “Judica” – from the first words of the
Psalm in Latin: “Judica me (judge me).”
Indeed, the church has a very different command than the world’s “Don’t
judge me!”

And
yet, dear friends, in our sins, we are like the world. For we are all poor miserable sinners in
thought, word, and deed. How can we cry
out to a righteous God: “Judica me!”? It
sounds foolhardy and presumptuous. For
let’s take a brief tour through the Ten Commandments.

Do
we fear, love, and trust in other things above God? Do we misuse the Lord’s name by vulgarity or
by failing to call upon Him in every trouble?
Do we do violence to the Sabbath by despising preaching and the
Word? Do we dishonor our parents and
other authorities? Do we kill, commit
adultery, and steal in thought, word, or deed?
Do we gossip and fail to explain our neighbor’s actions in the kindest
possible way? Do we mope and daydream
about our neighbor’s lifestyle, his spouse or job or circumstances or
possessions?

Are
we in the position to chant the antiphon: “Judica me” or should we join the
world’s chorus of “Don’t judge me!”? Do
the guilty normally seek out a judge to have his case heard, or is it the
innocent that seek judicial vindication?

You’ll
note that our English translations don’t say “Judge me,” but are actually more
bold to say: “Vindicate me.” For we
Christians are boldly, if not recklessly, demanding a verdict of “Not guilty” –
and so we do not cry out “Don’t judge me.”

How
can this be, dear friends, dear fellow sinners?
It can only be through Christ that we can pray this Psalm, for it is
only through Christ, by Christ, and in Christ, that we poor miserable sinners
are indeed vindicated, and judged to be innocent, adjudicated to be saints, and
rewarded with eternal life – only

by
Christ’s atoning blood sacrificed on the cross.
And this is why the church gathers around the Lamb that “takest away the
sin of the world,” and this is why we sing together: “Lord, have mercy upon
us.” This is why we assemble here in
this holy house to hear the words authorized by our judge: “I forgive you all
your sins.” It is in this gospel, this
good news, this forgiveness, that we, the church, voice our “Judica me” and cry
out for vindication from Him who judges all.

We
are vindicated because of the “holy hill” spoken of in the Psalm: “Oh, send out
Your light and Your truth! Let them lead
me; let them bring me to your holy hill.”
That holy hill is Calvary, the place of the skull, the very plot of
sacred ground that became the final altar of blood sacrifice, once for all, not
by the blood of bulls and goats, but the blood of Christ Himself, shed for you
for the forgiveness of sins. “Then” sings
the church, “Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy.” For this is where we see God, even our Judge,
with joy, knowing that by the Lord’s sacrificial and atoning blood, we have
been vindicated, joyfully declared “not guilty” by our judge in the very
presence of our vicious enemies, in the face of a hostile world, even in the
very jaws of the devil. We go to the
altar with exceeding joy in our vindication, participating in that body and
blood, wrapped in the white robe of baptism, having put all need for
self-justification and fear of being judged behind us.

And
so dear brothers and sisters, even as the Lord has a message for the church,
the church has a message for the world: “Judica me!” Let us all examine ourselves according to the
Ten Commandments and to the reality of our sin and inability to vindicate
ourselves. Let us throw ourselves upon
the mercy of the court, upon the mercy of God, “God my exceeding joy.” Let us be judged, let us be vindicated
according to the blood of Christ shed upon the holy hill, blood distributed to those who are baptized and who
believe, at joyful altars of God here and all around the world. Let the church not be bullied into silence,
but let her joyfully and boldly proclaim right and wrong, law and gospel, and
especially Christ’s vindication to a world that fears judgment more than
anything.

And
let the world join the church in being vindicated, in being forgiven, in having
the courage to confess clearly right and wrong, and in spite of our sins, to
remain steadfast and assured by the vindication that has come to us by grace,
through faith, as revealed in the scriptures, in Christ alone!

Vindicate
me, O God…. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy!” Amen.

His

on
the sickness of sinto the next - and d w liars and sons of the devil, tament, a
bloodye people on In the name of the
Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Sunday, April 06, 2014

We
live in an age in which we are all encouraged to have opinions about anything
and everything, and we can express these opinions publicly in many ways and
formats. And people become passionate
about their opinions, from current events and politics, sports and leisure,
what kinds of foods they like, what is the best kind of weather, to fashion and
music. People will argue with one another,
and in many cases, will pay to watch others argue about differing opinions.

But
if you really think about it, none of these things matter. At the end of the day, and the end of a life,
at the end of the age, what difference does it make whether Joe Smith or Mary
Jones won a congressional seat, whether Victor Newman got married for the 54th
time, or if the Saints ever won another Super Bowl? Is it really all that important what kind of
chocolate you like or how baggy your jeans are?

What
does matter, dear friends, is what you confess about Jesus. And this question, “Who is Jesus?” has been
asked by mankind in some form or other dating back to the Garden of Eden, when
God promised a Savior to vindicate us by crushing the serpent’s head.

Our Lord Himself gets into a discussion about who He is with people who think
they know Him better than He knows Himself.
As Jesus preaches to them first concerning who they are – namely obstinate
sinners who refuse to hear the Word of God – they in turn confess that Jesus is
a “Samaritan” and “[has] a demon.”

This
is how the sinful man responds to a call to repentance. In our pride, we lash out at the
messenger. We kill the prophets. We spread rumors about others. We engage in personal destruction as a means
of propping up our wounded pride. We
plug up our ears to the life-saving Word of God, as our Lord asks: “Why do you
not understand what I say?” and answers his own question: “It is because you
cannot bear to hear my Word.”

For
when the Lord speaks the Law, it stings.
And yet, like applying medicine to a wound, the sting is necessary for
healing. We must humble ourselves, dear
friends, to hear the Lord’s Word, lest we bear the Lord’s rebuke: “Whoever is
of God hears the words of God. The
reason you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

And
just as we may or may not receive the preached Word of God, we may or may not
receive the Word Made Flesh who has come to save us.

So
we are back to the question: “Who is Jesus?” What do we confess about Him?

Our Lord Himself plainly tells His hearers, including us, just who He is. “I came from God and I am here. I came not of My own accord, He sent
Me.” “I do not have a demon, but I honor
My Father…. I do not seek My own glory;
there is one who seeks it, and He is the judge.
Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My Word, he will never see
death.”

And
finally, the Lord Jesus Christ confesses and reveals Himself to us when He
says: “Before Abraham was, I am.” Jesus
is eternal. Jesus is the “I am” who
revealed Himself to Moses by that very name, that most sacred of names, in the
burning bush: the name that is above every name, the name before which every
knee shall bow, the name of the Word through which all things came to be, the
Word Made Flesh who dwelt among us.

Just
as when Jesus was in this discussion nearly 2,000 years ago, there is still a
burning controversy about who Jesus is today.
Some say He is a fictional character.
Some say He was a preacher whose followers created a myth. Some say He was a delusional madman with a
messiah complex. Some say He was a good
man who was killed because He was a good man.
Some say He was a prophet but not God.
Most simply don’t care as they pursue the illusory and temporary things
of this fallen and crumbling world. Many
mock. Some persecute those who confess
Christ as Lord. Some are still accusing
Jesus as being evil.

But,
dear friends, we, the Church, the bearers of the Word of God, we who have the
revelation of Jesus Christ by faith, have a different confession than the world. And thanks be to God! With our Lord, we confess that Jesus is the
great “I am,” that He is eternal, that He is God, that He came into our crumbling
world to save us, to rescue us, dying to defeat death, crushing the serpent’s
head at the cross, shedding His own precious blood for us men and for our salvation,
restoring us to Paradise in righteousness and peace!

Jesus is previewed for us in the account of Isaac, the only son of his father,
whom his father loved, offered up as a sacrifice according to the command and
will of God, bearing the wood upon his own back, climbing the hill to his own
sacrifice, and stretched out upon a wood-covered altar.

God
the Father is revealed to us in His mercy, when He sends the angel to intervene
and stop the sacrifice of Isaac, as God would provide a substitute.

Jesus
is previewed as that substitute, the ram caught with his gory head encrusted by
the thorns that first came to the world at the garden of Eden after the fall as
a result of sin. Jesus is previewed in
the name: “The Lord will provide.” Jesus
is the world’s substitute.

We
confess Jesus to be a “high priest of the good things to come” as is revealed
to us in the Book of Hebrews. “He
entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats
and calves but by means of His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.”

An
eternal redemption, dear friends! An
eternal redemption! Our struggle with
the serpent is over! Our subjugation to
death is ended! Our prideful sinful
nature that kills the prophets and calls the Son evil has been defeated along
with hell and the grave!

By
His blood sacrifice we are forgiven all our sins! By His bloody death we are all released from
eternal death. By His body and blood
sacrament we partake of His eternal redemption, eating and drinking unto
forgiveness, life, and salvation! And in
Holy Baptism, the blood of this once-for-all sacrifice was sprinkled upon us,
dear brothers and sisters, “that our inheritance in light has been secured.”

Indeed,
we have our opinions about everything, and we have more ways than ever before
of expressing those opinions. But only
one opinion matters, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, only one opinion
means anything at all. And that is our
confession about Christ, who is truly the “mediator of a new covenant, so that
those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.”

Then let us now draw near,

Washed in that precious
flood

And enter the Most Holy
Place

By Jesus’ blood.

From hearts that are
sincere,

Let tongues our hope
profess,

And trust anew God’s
faithful grace

That we confess.

Amen.

His

on the sickness of sinto
the next - and d w liars and sons of the devil, tament, a bloodye people on In the name of the Father and of the + Son and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Wednesday, April 02, 2014

which
is one of the last messages the prophet Isaiah has for us in the sixty-six
chapters of His book. “Rejoice with
Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you who love her.” For Isaiah has written prophetically,
proclaiming good news, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Isaiah informs the children of Israel of the
promise that their time in exile will end, and the blessings of eternity, as
conceived as a New Jerusalem, an Eternal Zion, the City of God, is coming upon
the Lord’s beloved chosen people as the Messiah is coming. And He comes not to punish sin, but rather to
forgive transgression. Not to seek justice against Israel, but to atone for
her.

“Rejoice
with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you who love her.”

In
this week of Laetare, the prophet’s call to rejoice is woven together as an
antiphon with King David’s great hymn to the New Jerusalem, the Eternal Zion,
the City of God – the 122nd Psalm, which was sung as the people of
God ascended higher and higher as they walked to the House of God to worship.

“I
was glad when they said to me,” says King David, says the people of Israel, say
the Church of every time and place and age, singing with great rejoicing: “Let
us go into the house of the Lord.” For
here, dear friends, in this holy house, we experience this New Jerusalem, this
city of peace where God and man have been reconciled, where our sins have been
forgiven, where God Himself has given us hope, joy, and a reason to live. God Himself has poured out upon us His grace,
His mercy, His peace – through the atoning blood of our Lord upon the
cross. And what’s more, dear friends,
this peace, this atonement, this life itself is here fed to you, as a mother
satisfies her children “with the consolation of her bosom” in a holy meal of
the Lord’s body and blood.

“Rejoice
with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you who love her.”

For
the name Jerusalem, symbolic of our New Jerusalem, our Eternal City, our City
of God is embedded in the name of our own congregation, Salem, chosen by our
forbears as a reminder that we are part of this New Creation undertaken by God
in Christ, a city not built on a river but on a baptismal flood, a city not
protected with walls, but shielded by angels, a city not governed by a mayor,
but overseen in love by the King Himself.
Salem is Shalom, Salem is peace, Salem is that reconciliation between
our righteous God and us poor, miserable sinners, a reconciliation based solely
upon Christ, given to us by grace, through faith, and secured by the Word of
God and His holy sacraments.

“Rejoice
with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you who love her.”

King
David implores us to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem,” not only the earthly
city of brick and mortar, but the eternal city of the living stones of the
people of God. We wish to have peace
among those here in this sanctuary, peace between all those who are members of
this congregation, peace between all of our brothers and sisters in Christ
across the globe, peace between all people of every land and language, and
peace between God and man in the cross of Christ. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: May they
prosper who love you. For the sake of my
brethren and companions, I will now say, ‘Peace be within you.’”

That
peace, dear friends, that reconciliation, the ending of the war that we started
with God in the Garden of Eden, the endless bloodshed between brethren of the
human race, the interminable squabbles between brothers and sisters within the
Christian Church, that peace that passes all understanding, is indeed what our
Lord won for us at the cross, and what He has given us at the font, at the altar,
and at the pulpit. It is that Word of
reconciliation that makes Jerusalem not only the great city, but the very city
of peace, a peace which has no end.

So
let us rejoice, dear friends. Even in
the midst of our sorrows, even as we still live in a world riddled by sin, a
church torn by schisms, a planet ablaze in conflict, a body still plagued by
death, and a life on this side of the grave still suffering the effects of
sin. Even in the penitential season of
Lent, let us rejoice, dear friends. Let
us rejoice because we know where we are headed – to the cross and to the empty
tomb. Let us rejoice like the ancient
Jewish pilgrims making their way with gladness to the City of Jerusalem,
knowing that they were going to the house of the Lord to find eternal
peace. Indeed, let us rejoice in the New
Jerusalem, the Eternal Zion, the City of God.

“Rejoice
with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you who love her.” Amen.

His

on
the sickness of sinto the next - and d w liars and sons of the devil, tament, a
bloodye people on In the name of the
Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Translate this page

Why Father Hollywood?

While serving in a previous ministerial call, I had to moonlight at the local Hollywood Video to pay for health insurance for the family. It took one of my coworkers a couple weeks before she stopped addressing me as "Father" and started using my first name.
It was a fun job. My co-workers were the best. I got free rentals too. You can click here to see a picture. Now you know the rest of the story...